Do Hindus have a right to condemn Christianity?Monday, February 6, 2012

Christians are offended when we Hindus criticize Christianity and accuse us of demonizing Christianity. They wonder why some Hindus who have settled in the Christian West, instead of being grateful to Christianity, are critical of it. This article provides 10 arguments in response to such complaints. Does anyone ever complain that we are demonizing Nazism? In the case of Hitler and Nazis it is considered legitimate to evaluate the facts and pronounce them as demonic. Why should the Christians protest when the same yardstick is applied to Christianity? Here are a few reasons why Christianity should be considered demonic and rejected. This is by no means a comprehensive list which would be part of my forthcoming work, “Rejecting Jesus.”

1. Christianity forces its decent followers to be hypocrites. The Bible (Deuteronomy 22:13-21) teaches that a woman who is not a virgin on her nuptial night should be dragged to her father’s doorstep and stoned to death, and exhorts every onlooker to participate in this violent orgy. Jesus affirmed this cruel teaching and wanted it to be fulfilled (Matthew 5:17-20). Nevertheless most Christians are decent enough to firmly repudiate Jesus as far as this teaching goes. Yet, by calling themselves Christians they have chosen to be hypocrites. A religion that forces its decent followers to lead a life of hypocrisy deserves to be condemned.

2. Christianity regards the acquisition of knowledge as the “original sin” of man (Genesis 2:17, 1 Corinthians 20-21, 26-29). How can anyone tolerate a religion which is against knowledge?

3. Christianity is a superstition which has been debunked by science. If one were to believe the Bible, the Christian god created the earth first and the sun later, a cosmological impossibility because the planets were formed from the gaseous dust after the sun had come into existence! The Bible also informs that the Christian god created the oceans and the whales first before he created the terrestrial creatures. Science has proven it wrong and has shown that the whales were originally terrestrial creatures that later relocated to oceans! A reader may benefit from “At the Water's Edge - Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs, and How Life Came Ashore but Then Went Back to Sea” by Carl Zimmer. A religion which science has debunked deserves to be rejected.

4. Christianity is an anti-Semitic religion. The Lutheran theologian Norman Beck catalogues more than 450 anti-Semitic verses in his article, “Removing Anti-Jewish Polemic from our Christian Lectionaries: A Proposal.” Many of these verses were uttered by Jesus himself and were directly responsible for two millennia of anti-Semitism which finally culminated in the Holocaust of over six million Jews. A reader is directed to Daniel Goldhagen’s “Hitler's Willing Executioners - Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” or to my article “From the Holy Cross to the Holocaust” (part of the anthology “Expressions of Christianity with a Special Focus on India”) for details. A religion whose core ideology is anti-Semitic deserves to be condemned.

5. The Inquisitions were the direct result of Christian teachings which spread hatred against and intolerance towards non-Christian religions and peoples. The Jews, Native Americans, and Hindus have been the prime victims of Christian Inquisitions the most affected being the Native Americans who were virtually wiped off the face of the earth while the rest were repeatedly persecuted for centuries. A reader is directed to “The Goa Inquisition - Being a Quarter-centenary Commemoration Study of the Inquisition in India” by A K Priolkar, “American Holocaust - The Conquest of the New World” by D E Stannard, and “The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth-Century Spain” by B Netanyahu for details. A religion whose core teachings lead to the persecution of others deserves to be condemned.

6. Christian predations against other innocent peoples are continuing even today unabated. The recent genocide of 1.3 million Iraqis is a Christian deed which was motivated by Christian religious teachings. Similarly, the genocide of 4.5 million Vietnamese Buddhists by Christians was also a deed that was entirely justified from the pulpit of the churches and enthusiastically received in the pews. In contemporary India, in the states of Nagaland and Tripura, as soon as the church converted a majority of Nagas to Christianity it used intimidation and terrorism to gain hegemony. It also advocated active massacre of Hindus especially Hindu children. A reader may refer to my article “The Christian ‘right’ to proselytize” in American Atheist Quarterly, 1Q, 2011 for details. A religion whose core message leads to terrorism against innocent people should be condemned.

7. Jesus sold his own brother into slavery. The Acts of Thomas reveals that Jesus once took his unsuspecting twin brother Thomas to the marketplace and sold him into slavery for just three silver coins. This is shocking behavior to say the least. Even Judas Iscariot, who supposedly betrayed Jesus, took 30 silver coins to betray his teacher. A reader may refer to “The Acts of Thomas, From the Apocryphal New Testament" by M.R. James. Jesus stooped low to sell his own twin brother for a mere three coins! Such a person deserves to be condemned. My forthcoming Tamiḷ book, “பொய்த் தேவன்,” (The False god) aims to document 108 such episodes from the Bible and the narratives of Jesus.

8. The Bible condemns vegetarians as possessed by the Devil and to hell (Acts 10:9-13, Romans 14:2, 1 Timothy 4:1-3). Hindus, Buddhists, Jainas, and Sikhs, as well as many decent people rightly consider vegetarianism to be a noble principle based on compassion, whereas Christianity condemns it and advocates cruelty towards animals. Such a religion deserves to be condemned.

9. Jesus, so claims the Bible, performed faith-healing on the sick and to revive the dead. These are biological impossibilities and should be dismissed with contempt. Taken literally, these stories depict Jesus as a liar and a heartless person - the story of Jesus reviving Lazarus being the best example. Lazarus is dead and his family is grieving. Jesus utters a few words to revive Lazarus (John 11:1-45). Since Lazarus is not around today, and was never again mentioned in the Bible, one can reasonably conclude that he died again. His family would have grieved all over again. Is it not cruel to make a family grieve twice over the death of a dear one? Jesus not only was heartless but also misled the family into thinking that death could be overcome. That makes him a false teacher who deceives the unsuspecting.

The Buddha, on the other hand, comes across as an honorable teacher who enlightens. A wailing young woman once tells him that her five year old daughter has died and pleads with the Buddha to revive the child. The Buddha says he would revive the dead child but on one condition. The mother must fetch a mustard seed from a house that has not seen death. The young mother takes leave of the Buddha. She returns in the evening and declares: “Teacher, I went from one house to another; from one village to another. I found out that there is not a house that has not witnessed death. I have realized that death is natural to everyone. I no longer fear death. I have memories of my child to cherish. You have given me wisdom.” (adapted from the Story of Kisa Gotami and the mustard seed from the Buddhist text Khuddaka Nikaya - Theri Gatha, 10:1). A false teacher such as Jesus deserves to be condemned.

10. Christianity is the first religion ever to be proven false. The Bible (1 Corinthians 15:12-20) asserts that Jesus was resurrected and if his resurrection was false then Christianity itself is false. If he was resurrected one should not expect to see his bodily remains on earth. Recent archeological discoveries have uncovered the family tomb of Jesus including the casket of Jesus. This proves that he was not resurrected. By the Bible’s own criterion now Christianity is a false religion. A reader may refer to the Discovery documentary “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” or the book “The Jesus Family Tomb - The Evidence behind the Discovery No One Wanted to Find” by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino for details. A Christian cannot complain when we reject a falsified religion.

A Hindu settled in the West has the dhārmic duty to criticize Christianity and to usher in various aspects of dharma wherever he or she lives. Dharma is about harmony and knowledge and every society benefits from it whereas Christianity is a false, violent, and dangerous creed. If you are a Hindu American like me then think of yourself as a good parent and the USA as your child. A good parent chastises the wayward child to make his life better whereas a bad parent will yield to the child and pave the way for his destruction. If an American Hindu turns a blind eye to this virus called Christianity he allows the USA to persist in its violent ways such as waging wars against innocent peoples. Instead, by helping eradicate Christianity from the USA we are helping America become a peaceful and harmonious society which could then pursue knowledge.